


I Can't Imagine A World With You Gone

by FireMane15



Series: I Can't Imagine A World With You Gone [1]
Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Major Character Injury, One Shot, Post-Season/Series 02, Worry, takes place a few weeks after season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29740041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireMane15/pseuds/FireMane15
Summary: He doesn’t know if he should be worried.Kory’s always back by now. But it’s not like she’s been gone for that long. It’s only been two and a half hours.Two and a half hours after when she usually comes back.But still only two and a half hours.A whole two and a half hours./Kory's nowhere to be seen, and Dick's trying not to lose it.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Koriand'r
Series: I Can't Imagine A World With You Gone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2193636
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





	I Can't Imagine A World With You Gone

Kory is the earliest riser of the Titans. She gets up at 5:50 am. Dick always registers her leaving the bed in the morning, even though he’s rarely fully awake when she leaves. He remembers her leaving this morning. After she sneaks out of his room, she goes on a run, buying a couple of newspapers from a stand or store on the way back everyday.

He doesn’t know the exact time she gets back, but he guesses it’s around 7:00. Connor is the other early riser in the group, and Dick knows that Connor and Kory eat breakfast together at 7:30. Kory showers and gets ready before then, so thus Dick guesses she usually arrives back from her run around 7:00. By the time Dick gets up to eat breakfast, Kory and Connor have already finished, and are sitting on the couch, Kory reading newspapers, and Connor watching TV.

Except for this morning.

When he walks in the common room, Connor is there alone. He feels a slight sense of unease develop in the pit of his stomach, but he ignores it. People break routines all the time. Nothing to worry about. 

But he does start to worry, as more and more people gather in the common room. And then everyone is here...everyone but Kory.

But still, Dick isn’t too worried. He still has that slight sense of unease. But no, Dick isn’t too worried. He’s mostly just curious. Curious to what Kory was up to, to why she had broken her usual pattern and done something different.

So he approaches Connor.

“Hey buddy, where’d Kory get up to?” Dick asks.

Connor looks at him confused.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her yet.”

Dick’s stomach drops, and that pit of unease in his stomach grows bigger.

Connor looks at him alarmed.

“Is something wrong? Your heart rate just sped up. A lot,” Connor tells him

“I don’t... I don’t know...No,” he stammers to Connor.

He doesn’t know if something is wrong. But he _needs_ to find out.

Dick stands up from his seat at the table abruptly, drawing everyone’s eyes to him. They look at him questioning.

“I...just remembered something that I need to do,” Dick lies, before bolting out of the room. 

No use worrying them yet. It’s might be nothing. It’s probably nothing. It’s just him, and his annoying tendency to worry about everything and assume the worst. His stupid, overactive, anxious brain. 

Objectively, there isn’t really much that should concern him right now. So, Kory broke a routine. A routine she’s kept consistently for the past three weeks. There is a million perfectly reasonable, non-worrying reasons why Kory isn’t at her usual spot, why Connor didn’t see her this morning. Just because Connor hasn’t seen her, doesn’t mean she’s isn’t in the tower.

Dick heads turns her room.

She could have fallen back asleep. That’s it. She’s probably in her room, sleeping right now. It would make sense. He did keep her awake quite late last night. It’s only natural for her to be tired out. She probably just laid on her bed, planning to rest her eyes for a few moments, and then she ended up falling asleep. She was probably just out of the shower. Showers can add to one’s feeling of sleepiness. That’s it. He’s gonna find her sleeping peacefully and beautifully on her bed, and he’s gonna scold himself for worrying even a little bit in the first place.

Still, he just can’t fight the feeling that something is wrong. No matter how irrational it is.

He gets to her bedroom.

“Kory?” he calls as he knocks on the door.

No response.

He tries again. Knocking and calling her name louder.

No response.

He then opens the door, and...no Kory.

His heart deflates.

But it’s fine. It’s probably fine. It’s fine. It’s fine.

She could be elsewhere in the loft.

* * *

He searches the whole tower. Every room. She’s not here. Which most likely means she never returned from her run.

He doesn’t know if he should be worried.

Kory’s always back by now. But it’s not like she’s been gone for that long. It’s only been two and a half hours.

Two and a half hours after when she usually comes back.

But still only two and a half hours.

A whole two and a half hours.

It still could be nothing. She could have gone out for breakfast. Or could have gone to do something else. Ran errands. Went to the grocery store. Went to do another activity.

It’s not like she would have to tell him. She’s free to come and go as she pleases.

She’s a grown woman. She doesn’t have to inform him of all her plans, of what she’s doing and where she’s going.

But still, Dick would have thought if she was not going to be here this morning, she would have told him. She’s thoughtful like that.

He decides it’s time to get the rest of the team involved.

* * *

Dick walks back into the common room. Everyone’s eating breakfast or doing various things.

“Has anyone seen Kory this morning?” he asks them.

They all look confused, and shake their heads.

“Heard from her? Been told that she has plans this morning?”

Again, no.

Dick can feel his heart rate accelerating. 

“You’re right,” Gar says, she he looks around the room, sounding concerned. “It’s weird that she’s not here.”

Dick knows he needs to remain calm, steady. If she’s in trouble, he’s no use to her panicked.

Besides, maybe she just forgot to tell everyone where she was going, he reasons. But that doesn’t feel right. And his earlier anxiety is seeming more and more warranted with each passing second.

“Okay, Okay,” Dick says, forcing his voice to remain calm. “I’m going to call her.”

He hits her name on his phone and brings it up to his ear, while the others watch him.

It rings. And rings. And rings.

With each ring that goes unanswered, the fear Dick feels deep in his bones increases.

More ringing.

And then voicemail.

A lump forms in his throat, as he looks at the others to shake his head.

He struggles to open his mouth, to make words come out. But he does. He has to.

“Kory, it’s Dick. If you get this, please call me and let me know you’re okay...uh, you’re not here, and none of us know where you are and we’re worried. So, uh. please call me back. Okay. Bye.”

He hangs up the phone, and silence falls over the room.

“Do you really think something’s happened to her?” Gar asks in a small voice.

What if something happened to her? 

What if something happened to her? 

What if something happened to her?

What if it has to do with whatever’s been bothering her these past few weeks?

What if it has to do with the nightmares she’s been having?

Has she been afraid of something? Or someone?

He’d asked her if something was going on. Twice. And twice she denied it. Lied.

He’d decided not to push her on it. To let her come tell him whatever it was on her own time and her own terms. 

And fuck. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck, he is really regretting that decision now.

If he had pushed her...maybe...maybe things would be different now. At the very least, he might have a clue towards her disappearance. If he could have prevented this by pushing her harder. If he could have done something, and he didn’t, and she-

No!

No. No. No. No. No

He is not thinking of that. That is not possible.

She’s okay. She’s okay. She’s gonna be okay. She has to be.

Dick knows he should answer Gar, but he can’t bring himself to in this current panic spiral. Luckily, Dawn steps in.

“Not necessarily...but, we still need to find her, and just make sure,” Dawn tells him.

“We don’t know how long she’s been...missing,” Hank says, putting out the last word reluctantly. “No one’s seen her this morning, but she could have disappeared sometime in the middle of the night.”

“No,” Dick says automatically. “She was here the whole night. She was here till at least six. I’m pretty sure she went on her usual run.”

The others look at him with questioning gazes.

“And how would you know that?” Hank asks.

“I...uh...heard her. Walking by my door this morning. On her way out,” Dick lies.

Connor is the only one who believes him. But right now, he really couldn’t give less of a shit about that . Who cares if they know he and Kory are sleeping together? That’s not important right now.

Nothing is important right now except for finding Kory, and Kory being okay.

But he can’t do that if he’s panicking. If he’s too emotional. He can’t lose it. So he pushes down the part of himself that wants to burn the whole city to the ground to find her. He lets a deadly calm wash over it, and laser-focuses on what it will take to find her.

He is about to open his mouth to give everyone order when the elevator dings.

Dick’s head whips towards the elevator. And he can feel relief start to flood his body. It’s got to be Kory. She’s okay.

The elevator opens. And it is Kory. But she’s not okay.

She stumbles into the room, limping and seemingly barely aware of her surroundings. There is a huge bloody gash on her head. There are scratches and cuts on her arms and stomach.

Dick’s heart tightens so much it feels like he’s gonna die. 

But he doesn’t.

He rushes to Kory’s side.

As he gets closer, he can see dark bruises on her stomach and arms.

No!

He’s just about to reach her, when she falls against the wall, her knees hitting the floor. Dick quickly drops to his knees by her side. And grabs her arms, trying to be as gentle as possible, to get her to look at him. He barely registers the others crowding around them.

Kory’s looking at him, but doesn’t seem to see him. Her eyes fight to stay open, and can’t seem to focus on one spot.

“Kory,” he says in a strangled voice.

He cups her cheek oh so gently, and tries to get her to see him.

It works.

“Dick?” Kory says in a sigh.

“Yes, it’s me....” he starts. He goes to tell her that she’s okay, but that’s not true at all. 

“I got you,” he finishes.

Her eyes flutter, and he can tell she’s trying to stay conscious. 

But after a few moments, she loses that fight, and passes out. Her head starts to fall towards the wall. But he grabs her to keep her from banging her head. He wraps his arms around her, keeping her upright.

He looks her over, scanning her injuries.

He wants to punch something. He wants to punch a lot of somethings.

But that won’t help her now. And helping her is all that matters. 

So he pulls himself together.

“Is-,” Connor starts.

“Hank, Rose, and Gar, check the security. Check the parameter of the building. Make sure whoever did this didn’t follow her back. Make sure no one can get in," Dick says is a tightly controlled voice, interrupting Connor.

The three nod, and go on their way.

Dick scoops Kory into his arms, and stands up. He makes his way towards the med bay.

* * *

He places her gently on one of the beds. Dawn and Connor come into the room and surround Kory’s unconscious body.

He moves to the head of the bed to check the gash on her head, her most pressing injury. The blood covers part of her forehead and has seeped its way into her hair. He sticks his hand in trying to move her hair out of the way so he can see the seriousness of the gash. It’s on the very edge of her forehead, not on her scalp.

His hands become sticky with her blood.

He wants to throw up.

“It’ll need stitches,” he tells Dawn and Connor.

“Do you...Do you want me to do it?” Dawn asks him softly.

His first instinct is to say ‘no,” to insist on taking care of Kory himself. But then he thinks of having to pull a needle through Kory’s skin, over and over again, so close to her face.

And yeah, he doesn’t want to do that. The thought of stabbing her with a needle makes him feel sick. He could do it if he had to. But he doesn’t have to. Dawn is more than capable of doing it.

And Kory’s always telling him he needs to rely on others, let others help him. So he decides to listen to her.

“Yes,” he tells Dawn.

He moves out of the way so Dawn can get to work. He heads over to the sink, and washes Kory’s blood off his hands. As he watches the blood mix with the water, and go down the drain, it just... doesn’t feel real. He feels like he’s out of his own body. That’s not Kory’s blood. Those aren’t his hands.

But they are. 

This is real.

He turns off the sink, and dries his hands. When he turns back towards Kory, Dawn is washing the blood off her forehead.

He couldn’t, wouldn’t, give her stitches, but he can’t just sit here and watch, doing nothing to help her. He remembers that she was limping when she came in. He makes his way to the end of the bed, and goes to stand by her left foot, the one she was limping on. 

He slowly and carefully takes off her tennis shoe and sock. And yes, her ankle is swollen, definitely injured.

“Can I do anything?” asks Connor.

“Why don’t you take off her other shoe? So, she’ll be more comfortable when she wakes up,” Dick responds.

Connor does as he’s told. Dick draws his eyes back to her ankle. Without her being awake, and without an x-ray, he can’t be exactly sure what the injury is. He guesses it’s a sprain. If it was broken, she likely wouldn’t have been able to walk. He grabs two pillows from one of the other beds, and places them on her bed. He lifts her foot up on the pillow.

Dawn has started on the stitches.

Dick goes to the cabinet and grabs some bandages. He lifts her ankle and foot up, and wraps them tightly but carefully.

This all feels so weird. Doing things to Kory’s body when she’s unconscious. Piercing her skin, taking off her shoes, wrapping her ankle. They’re not doing anything wrong. They need to help her. But it still feels off. Kory laying there unconscious, still, unaware, and passive, while the examine and fuss over her body.

He hates it. He hates all of it.

One one hand, he wants her to wake up. On the other hand, if she’s unconscious, she’s not in any pain.

Gar, Hank, and Rose walk back in the room.

“All secure,” Rose tells them.

“Man...” Hank says, looking over Kory’s injuries. “If only her powers were working...”

“Well, they’re not,” Dick snaps.

He doesn’t mean to. Hank didn’t deserve it. But he’s frustrated, and he doesn’t want to think of how quickly Kory would be healing if her powers were working. If her powers were working, she probably wouldn’t be in this state in the first place.

Dick heads to the fridge and takes out a pack of ice.

“Will that work?” Gar asks. “I mean, does ice have the same healing effect on her that it has on humans?”

“I don’t know,” Dick answers, as he wraps the ice on her ankle. “But it won’t hurt, so we might as well try it.”

They leave it at that.

Dick goes to the cabinet and gets antibiotic ointment and band-aids. Gar notices it too.

“Will the anti-biotic do work? What if it hurts her?” Gar asks.

“It works. And it won’t hurt her,” Dick assures him.

“You know this for sure?” asks Hank.

“Yes,” Dick replies, irritated. “Kory and I have talked about it. I wouldn’t give her any medicine unless I was 100% sure it wouldn’t hurt her.”

Dick can’t help but glare at Hank. The idea that he would so cavalier with Kory’s safety, that he would ever do anything to put her at risk...

He knows Hank likely didn’t mean it like that, didn’t mean to imply that, but he still can’t help but be annoyed and offended anyway. 

He starts on the cuts on her arms, putting the antibiotics ointment and then the band-aids on. Then he moves to the cuts on her stomach, which is exposed as she is only wearing a sports bra. He is careful not to touch the two big, nasty bruises there. When she wakes, they can put ice on them.

“Finished,” Dawn tells them softly. 

Dick looks over her work. It looks good. He gives her a nod of approval.

“When she wakes up, we’ll need to check for a concussion,” Dawn says.

Everyone nods along.

“I don’t know what meds we can give her for the pain when she wakes up,” Dawn continues.

“I do. We’ve talked about it... She thought someone should know how different medications react with her biology, just in case...something happened where she couldn’t tell us herself. No medicine that she’s heard of on Earth is really harmful to her. The worst reaction would just be some nausea or light headache. Some are effective, some won’t do anything. There’s a more detailed list in her medicine cabinet... I’ll go get it,” Dick tells them.

“Good thinking on her part,” Hank says.

Everyone nods their head in agreement.

Dick walks towards the door, but looks back at Kory one more time before he does. He hates to leave her side.

* * *

He grabs the list from her medicine cabinet and brings it to the med bay. It has many medications and Kory’s reaction to them based on her biology, and for the ones that are effective, she listed the dosage needed. Dick, Hank, and Dawn go over the list and confer on what pain med would be best to give her. They decide on one, and put the pill bottle on the small table beside the bed she lays in, so that they can give it to her quickly when she wakes up.

Now, all that’s left to do is wait for that to happen.

Dick can feel himself start to get antsy. Now that there’s nothing left to do, now that he can’t focus his mind on helping her, all he can focus on is Kory and her current state. The injuries the mark her body. The pain she’ll be in when she wakes up. What happened to her. Who fucking did this to her.

He pulls up a chair to the side of the bed.

He plops down on it in a way that makes it clear he’s not leaving anytime soon.

A few moments later, Gar pulls a chair to the other side of the bed and sits in it.

Everyone else just stands around, not really knowing what to do.

Eventually, Rose speaks up.

“It might overwhelm her when she wakes up, if all of us are crowded around her,” Rose says.

“Yeah, I think we should take turns staying with her,” Dawn suggests.

Dick isn’t going anywhere, he knows that. And he can tell the others know it too.

“Dick and Gar can stay with her now. And then in a while, why don’t you take Gar’s place, Connor? And then someone can take Connor’s place after that and so forth?” Dawn asks.

Everyone agrees to the plan. Everyone but Connor, who looks confused.

“What about Dick?” Connor asks.

“I’m staying here,” Dick says firmly, leaving no room for argument.

“But... I don’t understand. I thought we were taking tu-,” Connor says.

“Just let it be,” Gar gently interrupts.

Connor acquiesces. 

“Let us know when she wakes up?” Dawn asks.

“Of course,” Dick replies.

Everyone but Dick and Gar leaves.

* * *

Dick sits by Kory’s bedside throughout the rest of the day. The only times he leaves are to go to the bathroom. The other Titans cycle in and out of the med bay. Every once in a while, they bring him food. He eats it, even though he doesn’t have much of an appetite. 

He sits there, staring at Kory’s unconscious body, watching her chest rise and fall. He probably has every marking, injury, and cut on her body memorized by now.

It’s 9:00 pm. He’d thought she wake up hours ago.

Every hour that she doesn’t wake up, his anxiety increases.

Hank’s sitting in the other chair.

“It’s getting late. You can go and get ready for the night, go to sleep,” Dick tells Hank.

If it was someone else, they might have protested, might have told Dick that he needed to rest, that he doesn’t have to be the only one staying up all night, watching Kory. But if anyone can understand, it’s Hank.

“Okay,” Hank says as he stands up. “If she wakes up-”

“I’ll let you know,” Dick assures him.

With that, Hank leaves, and it’s just him and Kory.

* * *

An hour later, Dick hears groans. His eyes snap to her face.

Her eyes flutter open before squeezing shut again, screwed up in pain.

Dick leans over and grabs the pills and glass of water on the bedside.

“Hey,” he says softly.

She lets out another groan, bringing her hands to press against her forehead.

Dick moves closer to her.

“Here,” Dick says, as he helps her lift her head up. He gives her the pain meds, and helps a cup of water to her mouth. She gulps it down.

“That should help with the pain in about 30 minutes.”

He wishes it would work sooner.

She opens her eyes again as she nods.

“Thanks,” she says.

Now that her eyes are open, she looks over him, examining his face.

“You look tired,” she says, concerned.

_She's_ concerned about _him_?

It both makes him want to laugh, and want to cry.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he assures her. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit.”

“Headache?”

“Killer one.”

“You probably have a concussion,” he tells her.

“Great,” she deadpans.

“It also seems like you’ve sprained your ankle. But we should x-ray it to make sure it’s not a break. I’ve wrapped it and put ice on it. There’s a bad gash on your forehead that needed stitches. I’ve put antibiotics and band-aids on all your cuts. And you also seem to have some bad bruises.”

She looks down at her stomach, and then her arms, seeing her injuries for the first time.

He hopes he isn’t overwhelming her, laying out all her injuries like that. But, he knows if it was him, and he woke up in a world of pain, he’d want to know what was causing it, and what was done to him while he was unconscious. 

“Do you want ice? For the bruises on your stomach?”

She nods. He gets two ice packs and places them on her stomach. She winces from the cold. 

He sits back down in the chair.

“I...The others, they’ll want to know that you’re awake, but, correct me if I’m wrong, it doesn’t seem like you’re up to having a bunch people in here, crowding you. So I can just text them that you’re awake, but tell them to fuck off?”

Kory lets out a loud laugh that turns into a groan of pain.

At the sign of her distress, he can’t help but jump out of his chair, even though there isn’t anything he can do to stop her pain.

He feels so fucking helpless.

She takes a deep breath, and turns to him.

“Tell them to fuck off?” she asks, smiling.

“Well, I would say it a little nicer than that...” Dick replies, giving her a small smile of his own.

“That would be good, yeah...Thanks,” Kory says.

He takes out his phone and texts the team, telling them that Kory’s awake but that she isn’t up for visitors at the moment.

He sits back down in the chair, and they sit in silence for a few moments.

Eventually, Kory breaks it.

“I guess you’ve been wondering what happened, obsessing over it if I know you-”

Dick surges forward, and grabs one of her hands, gently and taking care not to touch any of her cuts.

“You don’t have to tell me right at this moment. Unless it’s urgent. You can rest some more, or at least wait until the meds kick in,” Dick tells her.

Kory abruptly goes to sit up. Dick rushes to her side, helping her.

And then she frantically tries to get out of the bed, but Dick keeps a hold on her, stopping her.

“Hey, hey, he-”

“I don’t... I don’t know if it’s urgent. I don’t...She knew the route of my run. So she knows about the tower. Knows that I’m here. She could-” Kory says, each word coming quicker than the next, and her breathing speeding up rapidly as she talks.

“Hey, hey, hey... It’s 10 at night now. No one’s come to the tower, no one’s tried to get in all day,” Dick says, as he gives her hand an extremely gentle squeeze. “If this person was going to come back today, I think they would have came already.”

Kory calms down, but still seems on edge.

“This would never have happened if I had my powers,” she says dully.

She has a vacant expression in her eyes.

It scares him. And it fucking hurts. Seeing her look so desolate. She’s always been so alive, so bright.

Worse, he doesn’t know what to say to help her. He can’t will her powers back, although he really fucking wises he could.

He doesn’t know what to say to help her.

So he just reaches a hand up, and gently pushes some of her hair back that had fallen into her face, caressing her hair, brushing his thumb lightly over the skin of her hairline as he does so.

And something about that causes the floodgates to open. She turns to look at him and tears leak from her eyes.

“It was my sister,” she says, voice tight.

Dick grits his teeth in anger.

Her own sister did this to her?

“She..She killed my parents, and -”

Kory dissolves into full out sobs.

Dick quickly moves, and sits on the bed with her. He pulls her against his chest. He’s careful not to hold her too hard, not to press on any of her injuries.

She sobs into his chest. He holds her and runs his hand back and forth through her hair.

He presses a few kisses into her hair too. He doesn’t know if that is in the boundaries of their...whatever they’re doing, whatever they are. But right now, he doesn’t fucking care. All he cares about is helping her, comforting her.

A few groans start to mix in with the sobs.

Fuck.

All this emotional distress, and movement must be increasing her pain.

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to help. 

And it fucking kills him.

He just continues to hold her. Still, it feels inadequate. Like it’s not enough. But it’s all he can think to do.

Eventually, the sobs die down. But looking down at her, he can tell she’s still in a lot of pain - physically and emotionally.

But she tries to power through it. Even though he can tell she’s tired, that she’s fighting to keep her eyes open. 

“So, as I was trying to sa-”

“Kory,” he interrupts her. “You don’t have to do this now. We will deal with this later I promise. For now, just rest.”

It’s as if he said the magic words.

Her eyes start to flutter, before finally closing. She leans on his chest. He adjusts his position, putting legs fully on the bed, and laying down more, so that she can lay on his chest more comfortably. 

She’s not asleep yet, but at least she’s resting.

And for the first time all day, he feels a little bit of peace. Just holding her. Feeling her body on his. Feeling her chest rise and fall against his. It’s reassuring in a way he can’t really put into words.

And it’s not that everything’s okay. Because it’s not. She’s still injured. Injured in a way that will take time to recover. She’s still in all kinds of pain. And his ability to fix it is limited. And it’s not that he feels okay. He doesn’t. He’s still filled with anger and sadness, and anxiety.

But, she’s in his arms, safe. Which is more than she was this morning. This morning he didn’t know where she was. Didn’t know if she was safe. Didn’t know if she’d ever be in his arms again, although he’d blocked that thought from his mind this morning the best he could.

He can’t lose her. He can’t. He wouldn’t survive it. Trigon’s nightmare showed him that.

He focuses on the feel of her hair in his hand. The rise and fall of her chest on his. The smell of her hair.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers to her.

He means it.

In every way.


End file.
